THE Scottish Government appears to have forgotten that a thriving culture is a keystone in the building of a nation, according to a prominent art critic.
“I think the SNP have taken the votes of the arts and culture industry – which are generally left leaning and generally Yes voting – for granted since the independence referendum but they need to be careful because people don’t think the same forever,” said Fergus Morgan, Scotland correspondent for the Stage.
“Building a nation is having a thriving culture that reflects and interrogates who you are as a people – it felt like they knew that back in the early 2000s with the National Theatre of Scotland and it felt like they knew that in the 1970s but it certainly feels like they have forgotten about it now.
“There has been a real failure of successive Scottish governments to have any real cultural vision beyond the National Theatre of Scotland.”
Speaking to the Sunday National amid the ongoing crisis in funding for the arts, Morgan said that the contribution the arts make to the mood of a nation could be seen in the effect of the famous 1970s play The Cheviot, The Stag And The Black, Black Oil.
“That was the response to what was happening with North Sea oil and part of the rise of Scottish nationalism the 1970s,” he pointed out.
One of the themes of his new podcast which charts the “extraordinary” history of Scottish theatre from pre-Reformation times until today is how it has thrived when there has been adequate financial support, either from the State or the Royal Court as was the case before the Union of the Crowns.
Morgan said that at those times Scottish “genius” had flourished and Scotland felt like the centre of the arts world.
“Even when I was growing up down south, you heard about the National Theatre of Scotland because of plays like Black Watch and you thought, ‘wow, this is the place to be’,” he said.
“Recurring throughout the podcast is that the genius of Scottish artists is always there but it needs to be adequately supported. The times when it has been, everyone has always said the same thing – that Scotland felt like the centre of the arts world.
“To be honest, it doesn’t feel like that just now. I agree with the SNP on a lot of things but I think they have treated the Scottish culture industry pretty poorly.”
One of the other interesting strands of the podcast is that Scottish theatre has had a different evolutionary story to a lot of English and other European drama.
Morgan traces this back to the Union of the Crowns, when James VI left Scotland and took his patronage of the arts to London. Without royal support, theatre in Scotland wilted under the strict Presbyterianism of the Reformation which led to its revival coming mainly through the folk tradition.
“The Church in Scotland found it much harder to stamp out the ceilidhs and folk traditions and over the centuries those morphed into the music hall and variety traditions, particularly in Glasgow where it was hugely significant,” said Morgan. “They were then picked up by the theatre industry, especially Glasgow’s famous Unity Theatre in the 1940s and the 7:84 company in the 1970s.”
Those traditions feeding into Scottish theatre means that it is more than just playwrights writing words for actors to perform.
“It is a different kind of thing, it is words but it is also music and dance, movement and poetry all rolled into one,” said Morgan. “That is something that is very unique about Scottish drama and I think that is partly why it is important.
“John Tiffany who directed Black Watch said he had been inspired by what he had read about 7:84 doing this in the 1970s and they said they were inspired by Glasgow Unity Theatre who in turn were inspired by the music hall and folk traditions.
“These lines are an inheritance in a way and are important because it is a cultural inheritance and it is how Scotland knows what it is as a country,” said Morgan.
To accompany the release of the podcast on October 28, Morgan will host a panel discussion on the current state of Scottish drama which will be recorded live and released as a seventh and final episode of the series on December 9.
Guests across the series include actors Bill Paterson and Muireann Kelly, Scottish arts critic Joyce McMillan and playwrights Jo Clifford, Stephen Greenhorn and Nicola McCartney.
A History Of Scottish Drama In Six Plays has been created with support from the Scottish Society of Playwrights and made in association with the Traverse Theatre.
